First Read-Thru

“All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.” – Seán O’Casey

Last night we had a first read-through with our cast of Annie Baker's The Antipodes.

As an Actor, and as a Director, I always joke that I love the 1st read-through because I haven't had a chance to screw things up yet.  

All our rehearsals are ahead of us and it is a moment that's all about possibility -- in as much as I've been studying and studying this script, and have loads of thoughts about it, so many of the theatrical choices to be made for this show are ahead of us. 

That's always true, of course, but I do think it's particularly true with a play like this.  

Because this play doesn't need me to make choices about... some framing device, some surprising stage craft, some context that I choose -- I think Baker has supplied that already.  She's written a fascinating, enigmatic, unusual show, and what it needs from me, from us, is for us to find, in the language and in the characters she's drawn, Truth.   

A truth, or some truths, or (sometimes) the truth.  Truth about each of these characters, some truths about the dynamics that we're watching in this Room, the truth about the journey each of these people goes on. 

I think this because this is one of those plays where it would be really easy to skip along the top of it all, to just pose and play at the weirdness, and lose sight of the fact that Annie Baker is always writing about real people.

But we've cast this really well, and I've got a tremendously talented group of actors, and I look forward to tomorrow night when we have a first table session to share our thoughts about this play.

- jq